Editorials

Get tourism USP right

Manipur always goes to the extreme. The passion so abundant in the place is admirable but it can often also be ridiculously misplaced. Take for instance the dream that has been worked up about making the state a tourist paradise. Many now have been led to believe the place is on the threshold of this paradise and all it needs now is to take just the last few steps to be there. Yet nobody is even sure, or has been told the exact route to it. Everybody believes it will just happen as if by magic, for tourists are craving to be here and once the state opens up its floodgates, the onrush will begin, and with this, the cash counters of every level of businesses and services will begin ringing. Our dream merchants have a lot explain about this false sense of euphoria. Let all be wary that if the bubble that has thus been created bursts, the disappointments can actually lead to disillusionment as well. We probably need to first clarify that we are not saying tourism will not work. We are only cautioning all who have been selling the dream of the imminent arrival of big easy money and prosperity overnight on account of tourism, and all who have bought it, to be more pragmatic. One or two questions should make this contention clearer.

One, why would tourists want to come to Manipur? The textbook answer is a belief that there are people around the world thirsting for nature, and Manipur can quench this thirst. Probably there is an element of truth in this, but what also has to be taken into consideration is, Manipur is not the only place that can cater to this need. There are scores of other locations which can provide the same relief, even within the Northeast, so why would anybody prefer Manipur to the other locations? Every tourist will want to get the best out of the limited time and money they have to spend travelling, and destination choice is not an easy thing. It is a competitive world, and our dream merchants must know what the Unique Selling Proposition, USP, of Manipur is and how to sell these to their target groups. Such questions also need to be factored into the dreams being sold. We all need to climb down from our collective ego a little to see this. Two, those who are selling the idea of tourism as a major lift for the place’s economy are not even certain what type of tourists they are targeting to attract. Do we want holiday tourists, business tourists, sight seers, bird watchers, pleasure seekers, nirvana seekers, adventure tourists and the list can go on. What they do not seem to realize is, all these categories of travelers cannot simply be flatten under the term tourists, for they are different animals altogether, with widely different needs and budgets. Some of them can bring in more trouble than money too. Again, the campaign has been such that whenever the word tourist is invoked, the image is of young fair skinned visitors loitering around the places, shopping for talismans and other memorabilia. Often unmindfully dismissed from the picture are domestic tourists. Many known tourist destinations in India however vouch domestic tourists, though not as glamorous or visible as foreign ones, are actually the revenue earner. For one thing, they are the ones who come in steady streams throughout the year.

The government and its dream merchants must first come up with a priority list on who they want as visitors, and thereafter seek to fashion people’s imagination accordingly. They could form a committee to study and write a detailed report on other similar tourist destinations in India for a start. And the qualification, “similar destination” is important. For instance, we cannot hope to wean away the kind of tourists who visit Agra to see the Taj Mahal or Aurangabad to see the Ajanta Ellora Caves, or for that matter, those who love the sea and sun of Goa and Kovalam. We will probably have to be looking at the kind of tourists who travel to Shimla, Nainital, Gangtok, Darjeeling or even Kathmandu. The picture of Kathmandu brings to mind another kind of tourists which probably Manipur can also aspire for. These are visitors that national and international conferences bring. Considering the vibrancy of the NGO movement in the state, and also the fact that issues of development, health, art and culture etc., are indeed Manipur’s live wires, perhaps this category of visitors can also be targeted. They are also mostly the kind of travelers, well-educated and wary about damaging the environment and local cultures. The moot point is, the government first need to do some serious homework before it promises the people tourism will be a deliverer.

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